The past generation has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet or World Wide Web (Web). As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world require human-computer interfaces. These changes have made computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the industrial world's population, which, up to a few years ago, was computer-illiterate, or, at best, computer indifferent.
As a result of these changes, it has become necessary for increasing numbers of workers and consumers, who are limited in computer skills, to become involved with computer interfaces. Thus, for the past twenty years, the data processing industry has striven to make user interactive display interfaces to computers more and more user-friendly and user-intuitive. The computer industry has had considerable success in making word processing and hypertext Web page user interfaces easier to use. However, one interface function that has presented considerable complexities to GUI interface users has been operations relating to displayed columnar tables representative of databases, e.g. spreadsheets.
One particular source of discomfort to users has been sorting of the columns, especially multiple sorting involving a plurality of displayed columns. Multicolumn sorting requires the selection of a set of columns to be sorted and the selection of the sequential, ascending or descending, order in which the columns are to be sorted. Some conventional multi-sorting permits the user to select the columns and the sequential order of the sort by sequentially clicking on the column heading in the table of columns through mouse controlled pointers or cursors. These methods often consume a significant amount of the displayed table window area and create what may appear to be screen clutter to less experienced computer users. There are other routines involving sequences of displayed user interactive dialog boxes that require extra interactive user interface time.